


i have blue lips, but my love for you is red like fire

by cherylbarrel



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Cheryl Blossom Needs a Hug, F/F, Fluff, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Makeup, Panic Attacks, Poison, Pretty Poisons, Protective Toni Topaz, Toni Topaz Needs a Hug, au for 3x16, but only after cheryl gets poisoned by the blue stuff during the musical, choni finally TALK, worried toni
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-23 05:26:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18147683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherylbarrel/pseuds/cherylbarrel
Summary: Josie's eyes widen as she takes in a very important detail.“Her…her lips,” she notices quietly, and Toni moves her gaze down to catch the stain of blue on Cheryl’s bottom lip.“No,” Toni chokes, “No, shit, please no. Cheryl! Wake up!” She gets desperate shaking the girl, hoping and praying that Cheryl will still wake up and tell them it was all a joke. Some sick, cruel prank, but a prank nothingless.But Cheryl isn’t waking up.They all know what the blue lips mean.They know immediately.ORCheryl gets poisoned by the blue stuff during rehearsals for the musical, and it causes Toni's world to come crashing down around her.





	i have blue lips, but my love for you is red like fire

**Author's Note:**

> ok! i've been wanting to write this since 3x15 aired, and i finally got around to doing it! despite the speculation, i don't actually believe this is going to happen in the musical ep, but it's such an incredible theory i had to write it. 
> 
> hope you enjoy!

It’s been a gruelling first week of rehearsals for the musical. Kevin has been kicking everyone into shape to ensure this performance was to the best of all their abilities. Partly to impress the other members of the farm, and partly to make up for last year’s tragedy.

It’s been a little awkward, to say the least. For a certain gang leader and red headed bombshell to see each other so often while they rehearse. Ever since the night they shared at the Speakeasy, they’ve been avoiding each other at all costs. They didn’t text, or talk during class, or acknowledge each other’s presence when they both happened to be at Pop’s.

It’s been radio silence, on both ends.

And neither have any idea how badly it’s tearing the other one up inside.

Cheryl wants to say something, maybe even apologize for the night at the Speakeasy, and ask where Toni’s been staying since. She can’t help but be concerned for her wellbeing, she doesn’t even know where Toni sleeps these days. But she doesn’t say anything, because as far as Cheryl’s concerned, Toni doesn’t want her to. It’s pretty clear to Cheryl that Toni doesn’t want anything to do with her.

Meanwhile, Toni’s been struggling with what she’s even supposed to say to the redhead. She feels like they won’t be able to get through a single conversation without fighting again anyway. Even so, she needs to talk to Cheryl. There’s so many misunderstandings between them right now, and Toni knows Cheryl is thinking the worse after she confessed she thinks she should move out. Toni needs to tell her she doesn’t want things between them to end, and if she doesn’t do it soon, she might never get the chance to.

But for now, they’re focused on rehearsals.

Anything to distract them. To take their minds off all this pain.

It’s day six of rehearsing, and everyone is getting pretty close to having all the lines memorized.

They’re running through the show, as usual, Kevin stopping them here and there to critic and give advice.

Cheryl is backstage while she waits for her next scene.

Josie and Sweet Pea are on stage right now, doing the scene where they hook up for the first time. It’s a little weird between them, and everyone can tell Archie is less than thrilled to be watching, but they don’t actually kiss or anything. At least not during the rehearsals.

Cheryl glances her eyes away from the stage for a moment, and accidentally finds herself staring over at Toni and a couple of the pretty poisons who are talking and laughing not too far away from her.

She quickly turns away before the urge to cry becomes more than just an urge.

It’s hard, knowing Toni is perfectly fine with her new friends, while Cheryl feels like she’s going to die every time Toni ditches her for something better.

It’s hard, but she can’t think about it right now.

This is the whole reason she wanted to do the musical in the first place.

To distract herself from all the heartbreak she feels, and channel her inner HBIC.

She didn’t want people to see her crying and distraught over Toni, but angry? Yeah, she didn’t mind people seeing her angry.

No one would dare confront her as long as she kept being the raging bitch she knew she could be.

It was that simple.

It’s time for Cheryl to do her scene with Josie and Sweet Pea.

It’s the scene where they “accidentally” poison her.

In an effort to take her mind off things, Cheryl is determined to give the scene her all, even if it is only rehearsals.

They run through it, and everything is going fine.

Cheryl’s killing it, she knows she is.

Josie and Sweet Pea feed off her energy and they start taking the scene extra seriously too.

Everyone slowly starts gathering around the edge of the stage to watch, and even Kevin is watching without interruption, not seeing any flaws for him to correct.

Evelyn should be down there watching with him, but she’s disappeared backstage somewhere a little while ago.

Josie hands the prop mug to Cheryl, filled with what they all thought was blue Kool-aid to simulate the drano that Heather Chandler is poisoned with in the story.

Cheryl drinks it, noticing right away that whatever that was, it definitely didn’t taste like Kool-aid. She was so into the scene though, she swallowed it all down before she could even think about it.

That’s when everything goes wrong.

Her vision turns blurry, and suddenly she’s passing out for real. No one really catches on at first, because she’s supposed to pass out in the scene, but Josie picks up on the fact that something isn’t right.

Although a little skeptical, Sweet Pea is about to say his next line, not quite realizing what just happened yet, but Josie quickly stops him.

“No, no stop! Somethings wrong!” She cries out, kneeling down next to Cheryl, and shaking the girl’s shoulders.

Cheryl doesn’t open her eyes though.

And then, there’s Toni.

Toni who was watching from off to the side of the stage, hiding a small smile as she watched Cheryl perform.

Toni who also caught on right away that something wasn't right.

Cheryl didn’t fall the way she was supposed to, and Toni knows immediately that the imperfection is a sign of foul play.

Her heart all but plummets when she realizes.

This isn’t happening.

No way in hell is this happening.

She rushes out onto the stage, panic seizing up her chest as she drops down to her knees too.

“Cheryl?” She frantically exclaims, leaning over the girl, with one hand holding the unconscious girl’s head up. “Cheryl! Hey, come back! Come back to me!” Her voice cracks at the end of her sentence.

Josie's eyes widen as she takes in a very important detail.

“Her…her lips,” she notices quietly, and Toni moves her gaze down to catch the stain of blue on Cheryl’s bottom lip.

“No,” Toni chokes, “No, shit, please no. Cheryl! Wake up!” She gets desperate shaking the girl, hoping and praying that Cheryl will still wake up and tell them it was all a joke. Some sick, cruel prank, but a prank nothingless.

But Cheryl isn’t waking up.

They all know what the blue lips mean.

They know immediately.

Josie yells at Kevin to call 911, and the boy quickly jumps into action to do just that.

Toni starts to sob over Cheryl’s body, and she doesn’t stop calling Cheryl’s name in a frenzy of panicked emotion.

She’s dying.

Cheryl’s dying.

It’s the only think she can think, and suddenly she doesn’t care that she’s in an auditorium with a bunch of people watching, she gets desperate. Agonizingly desperate.

She shakes Cheryl’s body like she’s nothing more than a ragdoll, pleading with her to just wake up over and over again.

After a minute, Toni can feel who she thinks is Veronica behind her, trying to pull her away, but Toni thrashes her off of her, and continues to cry and tremble next to Cheryl’s still body.

“Please, you’re okay! You’re okay, just wake up, wake up!” Toni begs, hyperventilating beyond the point of return, as the blue stain on Cheryl’s lip develops to an even deeper shade.

Archie comes over to help, him and Veronica both grabbing onto Toni’s arms as they pull her away all while she cries and screams at them to stop.

She’s dying.

Cheryl’s _dying_.

xxx

“Toni, hey, you need to calm down,” Veronica voice is gentle but firm, as she notices the way Toni’s pacing is getting more intense, and her breath is starting to come out shaky.

Toni barely even hears the words Veronica says. Her mind is anywhere but this hospital waiting room right now. There’s a montage of memories with Cheryl running through her head, making her dizzier by the second, her heartbeat is pounding against her chest as she thinks about how those memories might be the last ones she’ll ever get to make with her girlfriend.

“She…she could be dead,” Toni mumbles, still pacing in the small space, with her nails digging into her own wrist, “and we’re fighting, she could die while we were fighting a-and, I-I’ll…never…” Toni starts to trail off, finding it harder and harder to breathe.

Veronica and Betty share a nervous look before wordlessly making the decision to spring up from their seats.

Both girls grab Toni to stop her from pacing, and Toni badly flinches when their hands fall on her body. She didn’t even register that they had gotten up, to be honest, she didn’t even register that she wasn’t the only one standing here in the waiting room.

Toni tries to shake their hands off, but Veronica’s firmly holding onto her bicep, trying to snap her out of the building panic attack she’s about to have.

“Please, Toni, just sit down,” The raven haired girl pleads with her.

Toni frantically shakes her head, “No, I’m fine, get off of me,” she argues, vision blurry from the tears, her heart racing.

She can’t stop thinking about Cheryl.

She can’t stop seeing Cheryl lying motionless on the middle of the stage, all of them confused for a moment thinking Cheryl was still just acting, but when Toni got closer and saw the blue staining her usually cherry red lips, and that her skin had turned even paler than her already ghostly complexion, Toni knew.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

How the _hell_ did she let this happen?

Kevin had promised them that they’d be using blue Kool-aid for the prop drano, but somehow real poison had snuck it’s way onto set. And someone tried to poison Cheryl for real.

It makes Toni sick to her stomach just thinking about it.

There were a million questions on her mind, she wanted to know who could have done something like this, and why, and how?

Her already spinning mind gets even dizzier when she thinks about the perpetrator being among them right now, here in this waiting room.

It could have been one of them.

They could be sticking around just to ensure they got the job done.

It makes Toni want to pummel every single one of them into the ground until she gets a confession.

Regardless of what happens to Cheryl, Toni is making a promise to her right now, that she’s going to find whoever did this, and she’s going to make sure that person regrets every miserable second of their life.

Blinding rage mixed with uncontrollable panic is a horrible combination, and they can all see it on Toni’s face. The group exchanges concerned looks, wondering what the hell they’re supposed to do as Toni’s breathing gets even shakier.

It’s when Betty notices the small, bloody crescent shaped indents on Toni’s wrist from her nails, that she speaks up.

“Hey, Toni,” she tries to get her attention, gently putting her hand back on Toni’s shoulder, waiting a moment for their eyes to meet.

“If you make yourself sick like this, you’re not going to be in the right state of mind when the doctors come back with news about Cheryl. They might not even let you see her, they’ll want to help you instead, they’ll keep you away from her,” Betty tries to bargain with her, knowing that the only way to get through to Toni right now is to make it about Cheryl. Toni is much to selfless to calm down for her own good, but she’ll calm down for Cheryl’s good.

Toni whimpers at the words.

Fuck, Betty’s right.

She can’t do this right now, she has to keep being strong. For Cheryl. As devastatingly hard as it is, she needs to pull it together.

Toni slowly nods, and submits to Veronica’s attempt to lead her back over to the uncomfortable waiting room chairs.

Jughead shares a sad nod with Betty, and the blonde goes back to sit next to him, the couple wordlessly clasping their hands together.

Veronica gets Toni to finally take a seat, but it doesn’t take long for the broken girl to fall against Veronica, crying into her shirt.

She simply rubs a comforting hand along Toni’s back, letting the other girl cry her eyes out without any judgement. She can only imagine the pain Toni’s in right now. Veronica thinks about how she would feel if she were in the same situation, and subconsciously, she lifts her gaze to steal a look at Archie sitting nervously across the room, but then she guilty lowers it, trying to push away what it meant that the first person she thought of was Archie, and not her boyfriend, Reggie.

“It’s going to be okay, Toni, she’s going to be okay,” Veronica whispers, bringing her focus back to what’s important.

Toni chokes up harder at the words.

Veronica can’t know for sure. None of them can.

Maybe Cheryl will be alright, or maybe she’ll die today, and Toni has no idea which it will be, and that only causes her heart to ache more.

It was horrific enough, the thought of losing her girlfriend, but to lose her while they were on such bad terms, that must be some form of cruel, punishing joke, on the universe’s part.

Toni would never get to apologize, she would never get to explain her actions, she would never solve this ongoing conflict between them. Cheryl would die thinking Toni lost interest in her, and that she was all alone again, and Toni wants to scream at her past self for letting it get this bad.

If anything, this incident has definitely shown Toni that she can’t do this without Cheryl. She doesn’t want to do this without Cheryl.

She may have wanted space recently, and a little more independency, a chance to step back and be an individual again, after so long of only being a pair. But to lose Cheryl entirely, Toni physically doesn’t think she’ll be able to handle that.

She should have just talked to her girlfriend. Explained how she was feeling instead of pushing her away. She was acting so immaturely, and granted, Cheryl didn’t exactly respond in the most mature ways either, but they’ve both made so many mistakes at this point that Toni doesn’t even care. She just wants Cheryl to be alright, she wants to kiss her, and tell her how much she loves her. Toni wants to hold Cheryl tight, and promise her that she’s it for her. Even if sometimes she needs a little breathing room or gets caught up with her friends, Cheryl is _it_ for her. For better or for worse, for the rest of their lives, Toni just wants Cheryl.

The group sit there in silence for a while.

Kevin has been biting his nails raw as he struggles with the guilt he feels for letting this happen. It was his job to take care of all the props, and if Cheryl doesn’t come back from this, he’ll sit with the guilt that he played some part in her death, for the rest of his life.

Archie and Josie are sitting next to each other, their arms brushing, as they just wait nervously for any news about Cheryl. They were both scared out of their minds about this whole thing. Josie is especially wrestling with her feelings. She was the one to hand Cheryl the mug. She obviously had no idea that anything besides blue Kool-aid was inside, but the more she sits there and thinks about, she feels responsible.

Jughead and Betty are both deep in thought. They weren’t on stage when it happened, they didn’t even see it happen, one minute they were backstage talking and smiling and sharing a kiss, the next minute the sound of Toni crying and desperately yelling Cheryl’s name, had them running out to the rest of the group. Jughead can’t help but cast the occasional worried glances at Toni. They might have a lot of bad blood between them as of late, but it hurts him to see someone he still considers a good friend, this distraught.

It takes over an hour of them all waiting there, desperate for answers, before any news comes.

Toni grows more terrified with every minute that passes, thankfully she’s calmed down from her panic attack a little bit, her breathing more stable, and her head a little less fuzzy, but that doesn’t change the fact that she still feels like the entire world is falling apart. She doesn’t stop crying the entire time they wait, her tears soaking through Veronica’s shirt, not that the raven haired girl cares. Veronica simply keeps whispering words of comfort and holding Toni close.

When a doctor finally does come around the corner, giving the group of teenagers a sad smile as he sees how beat up they all look, Toni jumps out of her chair with inhuman like speed, it makes her head spin, and Veronica quickly reaches out to steady her.

“Are you all here for Cheryl Blossom?” The doctor asks, each of them perking up from just the sound of her name.

“Is she okay? Please, is she alive?” Toni desperately asks him, shrugging Veronica off of her as she walks right up to the doctor.

The doctor looks at her sadly for a moment, and all of them feel their breaths get caught in their throats.

“She’s stable,” The doctor reveals with a gentle nod, and Toni feels more hot tears stream down her face, but this time for a much different reason.

“She’s a fighter, that one,” He continues with a small smile, “She’s in room 217, but please try not to overwhelm her, she might be a little disoriented for the time being.”

The minute those words leave the doctor’s lips, everything else happening around Toni is drowned out. The sounds of her friends behind her turn into nothing more but a quiet hum, her one purpose in that moment is to see Cheryl. Nothing else matters.

Toni’s legs start moving, and the others jump up after her.

“Thank you,” Archie politely tells the doctor as they pass him, the man giving them a nod before going back to his job.

When Toni reaches the door that Cheryl is currently behind, she stops nervously right outside.

She hasn’t exactly thought this through. What was she going to say? What are you supposed to say to your girlfriend who you’ve been fighting with for weeks and just got mysteriously poisoned in the middle of the school day?

Everyone else comes to a stop behind Toni once they catch up.

It’s Josie who moves closer and curiously asks, “What are you waiting for?”

Toni chews on her bottom lip.

“I don’t know what I’m going to say,” Toni tells them honestly, being vulnerable for a rare moment. It’s not often she displays anything else but the big, tough gang member persona she’s grown used to carrying around, at least in front of people she’s not entirely comfortable with. People, who, well, aren’t Cheryl.

“Just say you love her,” Archie says, and he does so with such simplicity in his voice, as if it’s the easiest thing in the world, and it’s so convincing that Toni can’t help but believe that maybe it really is that easy.

She nods, and with a deep breath, she opens that door.

Cheryl’s there, laying on hospital bed with her eyes closed, the steady sound of her heart rate monitor the only sound in the room.

Toni wants to break down all over again when she sees her.

She looks so small and fragile. There are circle under her eyes, and her skin is still just a little too pale.

Toni slowly gets closer, and she chokes back her sobs when she sees that there’s still a stain of blue on the inside of her lips.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” Toni whispers brokenly, freezing in her spot a couple feet away from Cheryl’s bed.

“Of course you can,” Veronica pushes, stepping up and putting a hand on Toni’s back, “It’s just Cheryl, Toni, there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

It’s Cheryl.

Just Cheryl.

The girl is she loves more than anything else.

The girl she’s shared some of her deepest, darkest secrets with. The girl she’s held close after countless nights of heart wrenching nightmares keeping them awake. The girl she spent the summer traveling the coast and sharing crappy motel mattresses with. This is her girl. This is Cheryl. There is nothing to fear, not as long as they have each other.

Toni closes the rest of the distance between them in a moment of sudden bravery.

She stands right next to Cheryl’s bed, gently picking up her pale hand, squeezing it tight, and looking at her sleeping body with such adoration.

Oh, how she loves this girl.

Loves her, dangerously so.

“Here,” Betty speaks, dragging a chair over for Toni so she can sit and still be next to Cheryl.

“Thanks,” Toni distractingly mumbles, sitting down, her grip still tight around Cheryl’s hand.

The redhead stirs ever so slightly, her hand twitching in Toni’s hold, and Toni goes tense, anxiously watching the girl.

“Cheryl?” She hesitantly asks, “Baby, wake up.”

Her eyes flutter beneath her eyelids, lips turning to a pout as she slowly starts coming to.

Everything is in a daze, and her throat feels dry and sore, the only thing she can hear is a persistent beeping, along with a very quiet, familiar voice, that has her wanting to break out of this dream state more than anything.

Toni’s voice.

It’s Toni’s voice, and she’s half unconscious, but Cheryl just knows.

Her eyes open, blinking against the harsh light that immediately meets her pupils. She can see a group of fuzzy figures standing in front of her, and when something squeezes her hand, she moves her gaze over to see Toni sitting right next to her.

“Oh, thank god,” Toni breathes in relief, and Cheryl furrows her eyebrows in confusion as she sees Toni’s tear stained face, puffy cheeks, and rosy nose.

She doesn’t know what happened to make Toni so upset, but Cheryl instinctively wants to move her hand up to brush away some of her runaway tears.

She tries to do just that, but the hand that isn’t in Toni’s, is attached to an IV, and Toni quickly stops her movements, “Hey, no, no, it’s alright, just stay still, okay?”

Cheryl’s only further confused by Toni’s worried behaviour, but she obeys anyway.

“W-What happened?” Cheryl’s scratchy voice asks, looking up to see the faces of her friends all there.

Veronica and Betty, Josie and Kevin, Archie and Jughead are all here, and they all have a similar look of exhaustion and relief on their face.

“What do you remember?” Kevin is the first to ask her.

Cheryl racks her brain as she tries to fill in the missing gaps.

She remembers the musical.

They were doing rehearsals for the musical.

She remembers watching Toni with the poisons backstage, they were laughing together, and Cheryl remembers wanting to cry.

She didn’t cry though. She pushed her pain down, and instead tried to use her hurt feelings to channel an incredible Heather Chandler performance.

They were running through the scene where Josie and Sweet Pea’s character poison her, and Cheryl remembers giving it her all, snatching the mug of “poison” out of Josie’s hand and drinking it down.

After that, her memories kinda go blank.

“The musical…we were rehearsing,” Cheryl slowly works out, “I remember doing my death scene with Josie, but, then…” she trails off, looking up at her friends for the rest of the answers.

“Yeah, you may have went a little too method with that death scene,” Jughead tries to joke, and Toni whips her head around to give him a deadly glare, while Betty elbows him in the ribs.

“Ow! It was a joke,” He grumbles.

Cheryl only turns even more confused.

“We don’t know how, but someone must have switched out the Kool-aid for the real thing, you almost died, Cheryl,” Betty reveals, looking down sadly at her cousin.

Cheryl’s heart skips a beat.

Oh.

She…almost died.

Someone…tried...to….oh.

“Cheryl, I am so, _so_ sorry, I promise we’re going to get to the bottom of this,” Kevin tells her with complete sincerity.

“Yeah, we definitely will, and in the meantime, we’re so relieved that you’re alright,” Veronica continues, looking at Cheryl with her soft, kind eyes.

Veronica isn’t the only one, every single one of them are looking at her with such heavy gazes. Concern and pity shining through and practically blinding Cheryl with just the sheer amount of it.

Cheryl shrinks back a bit from all the prying eyes that are on her right now.

She knows they were all just trying to comfort her, but having them all here, looking at her like…like…that, it makes Cheryl feel sick all of a sudden.

Toni, always the oh so observant girlfriend, instantly picks up on the change.

“Alright,” she stands suddenly, turning to face the rest of the group, “Thank you guys, for being here, seriously, but, you need to leave now.”

“What? But, Toni—“ Veronica tries to object.

“Please,” Toni interrupts, looking behind her shoulder to see Cheryl looking so unlike herself in that hospital bed. She’s not the usual confident, in charge girl strutting through the school halls, she looks scared and on the verge of tears, and Toni hates the contrast. It brings her right back to almost a year ago, when she was rescuing Cheryl from The Sisters, the time when Toni promised to never leave Cheryl alone again, a promise she’s been shit at keeping lately.

“Just, give her a little bit of space right now, okay?” Toni silently pleads, moving to meet the eyes of every single one of them.

Archie is the first to take the hint.

“Come on guys, the doctor did tell us not to overwhelm her, remember? We can come back later when she’s feeling a bit better,” He reasons with all of them, and him and Josie join hands as the singer looks up at him with a small smile.

“He’s right. We love you, Cheryl, we’ll come see you later, yeah?” Josie softly asks, and Cheryl simply nods in appreciation.

They all follow Archie and Josie’s lead after that. Speaking words of comfort to Cheryl before exiting the room. Veronica is the last to leave, shooting a stern glare to Toni, almost as if to say “ _Talk to her._ ”

Once they’re alone, Toni sits back down next to Cheryl, and takes the redhead’s hand again in silence.

Cheryl doesn’t try to pull away, but she can’t help but be surprised at the action.

It’s awkward for a minute, neither girl really knowing what to say.

Cheryl’s waiting for Toni to speak first, figuring she must have something to say if she’s still here, if she didn’t want to leave with the others.

Eventually, Toni starts talking.

“I’m going to find whoever did this to you, Cher,” she says with such determination, “I’ll find them, and make them pay for this, okay? They won’t get away with it, I’ll make sure they regret even thinking about messing with you.”

Cheryl hears her, but isn’t really listening.

She can’t stop thinking about all their recent fighting, and the ignoring each other, and the not sleeping in the same bed. Toni’s words are nice to hear, but it’s not what Cheryl is looking for. She can’t stand another minute of Toni pretending nothing is wrong, as she’s been doing for weeks now.

“Toni,” Cheryl says softly, the tears stinging in her eyes completely out of her control, “What are you doing here?”

Toni whines at the question, eyes flicking up to meet Cheryl’s in surprise. “For you, Cher. Where else would I be?”

“We aren’t exactly speaking to each other right now,” Cheryl sadly shrugs, “I get it, if…you want to leave.”

Toni eye’s widen even further.

Leave?

No, never in a million years.

Toni can’t even believe Cheryl would even suggest that.

Have things really gotten that bad between them?

“No way. I’m not here because I think I have to be, I’m here because I want to be. I’m here because there is absolutely nowhere else I would be right now, okay?” Toni’s tone doesn’t leave much room for arguing.

It doesn’t matter how much they fight or what about, Toni needs Cheryl to know that she hasn’t for a minute stopped caring about her.

Cheryl looks at her with such exhaustion in those teary, brown eyes.

“Why did it take me almost dying for you to want to be near me again?”

The words shatter Toni’s heart into a billion little pieces.

Cheryl isn’t angry, isn’t accusing her, she sounds like she’s just genuinely asking, and that’s what gets Toni most of all.

It’s true.

She’s been pushing Cheryl away.

Didn’t even bother to tell her why, just continued to leave her hanging despite Cheryl’s efforts to cling on to her.

And when Cheryl thinks about it, she knows that she hasn’t exactly made it easy for Toni to want to stick around.

She gets too caught up in herself sometimes, forgets that Toni is her own person and doesn’t necessarily like every activity that Cheryl drags them out to do. Doesn’t necessarily like the room decor that Cheryl claims is _theirs_. Doesn’t necessarily agree with the schemes Cheryl pulls off without even mentioning them to Toni first.

But why, why couldn’t Toni just talk to her about it?

The only reason Cheryl could think of is that Toni doesn’t love her anymore. She’s moved on, and didn’t have the heart to tell her, so instead she just spends her nights with the poisons and spends her school days with Veronica, and hopes that Cheryl will finally just take the fucking hint.

“Cheryl,” Toni says, blinking back her tears, “I’ve made a lot of mistakes lately, and I know a simple I’m sorry can’t fix them all. It won’t solve what’s been going on with us, but _talking_ , talking about everything might. We need to talk and really listen to each other, both of our sides, no running away or getting angry or accusing each other. We just have to get it all out, and figure out where to go from there, because, Cheryl, I love you, and I’m not going to give up on that. I know we can get through this and come out on the other side even stronger. I know it isn’t fair that it took you…almost dying, for us to get here, but Cheryl seeing you like that, it woke me up. It made me realize I can’t live a single day without you, and I don’t want to. I need you, and I know we can fix this.”

They’re both crying now despite their efforts not to.

Any consideration for putting up a strong front, long gone. They were never good at hiding from each other anyway.

“You still…want me?” Cheryl insecurely wonders.

“Baby, I never stopped,” Toni promises.

“It felt like you did,” Cheryl tries to ignore the way her heart flutters from Toni’s confession.

“I know,” Toni sadly moves her gaze down to the bedsheets, “I didn’t do a very good job of letting you know how I was feeling, that’s on me, and I’m really sorry. I realize now I was being stupid and immature, and worse than that, I continued to let you think the worse.”

Toni will never forgive herself for letting Cheryl think she was on her own again. It’s something she’ll beat herself up over for probably the rest of their lives.

Cheryl chews on her bottom lip.

“Toni, I…I’m sorry too. I know I can be clingy, and I didn’t mean to suffocate you, I just got so scared. You were slipping away, and I didn’t know what to do.”

Toni sighs and squeezes Cheryl’s hand in comfort, “I should have talked to you. The truth is, I just needed some space, I was starting to forget who I was as an individual, you know? I’m not sure if I’ve ever actually had my own identity. For so long my identity was with the serpents, people saw that jacket, and it’s the only thing they ever saw. Then with you, I don’t know, suddenly the only thing people saw was that I was Cheryl Blossom’s girlfriend. I love you and am so proud to be your girlfriend, but it just started getting to me I guess.”

Cheryl thinks over the words, wanting to do her very best to truly listen to Toni, and the thing is, she isn’t finding that to be a difficult task. She knows exactly where Toni is coming from.

For so long she had the same problem.

She was a Blossom, and that’s all people wanted to see.

Then after Jason died, she was the girl with a dead brother.

It took countless days of tiresome hard work for Cheryl to make a name for herself. For people to start seeing her as something other than her cursed family history.

So, Cheryl gets it.

“I understand that, Toni. You need your own identity. I can help you find it! We can re-decorate Thistlehouse, and I’ll let you change the radio stations in my car to those indie rock ones you like, and you can pick what we do on date night, and we can—“ Cheryl excitedly rambles.

“Slow down,” Toni chuckles softly, “Thank you, babe. Let’s just take it one step at a time though, okay?”

Cheryl smiles, “Yeah, okay.”

“Alright, your turn. Talk to me, tell me how you’ve been feeling lately.”

Cheryl takes a deep breath.

It’s been a few weeks since she’s opened up so honestly to Toni, she’s been too afraid to as of late. Scared that Toni will brush her off, she’s decided to just keep quiet to protect her already fragile heart.

But this is Toni.

She can trust her.

“I thought you wanted to break up,” Cheryl admits, noticing the guilty look that takes over Toni’s face from the words, “I thought you had finally reached your breaking point with me, but was just too afraid to tell me, so you spent all your time with the poisons instead so you didn’t have to deal with it. At first I thought I could still fix it, but every time I tried I somehow just made it worse, and at the Speakeasy, when you told me you wanted to move out, I don’t know, it confirmed everything to me. I thought you wanted to distance yourself as much as possible, so It’d be easier to officially break things off.”

It makes Toni feel like shit, hearing Cheryl’s broken words.

Cheryl’s been saying something along those lines for a little while now, but it’s the first time Toni is really listening to actually listen, as opposed to listening just to come up with some bullshit rebuttal.

“That wasn’t my intention at all,” Toni tells her, hoping and begging that Cheryl can see she’s telling the truth, “I never wanted to break up. Even with how confused and upset I was feeling, one thing that was always clear was how much I love you. You’re my everything, Cher, even when things aren’t going so well. It’s always going to be you and me.”

Cheryl’s relieved to hear the words, her doubts and fears melting away the longer Toni looks at her with such sincere eyes.

She believes her.

Not because she wants the words to be true, but because she knows they are.

She’s always going to need some reassuring, but deep down, Cheryl knows how Toni feels about her, not from being told, but just because she knows.

“Toni, can you kiss me?” Cheryl hesitantly asks, but when Toni breaks out into a grin, her hesitancy disappears.

Toni is careful not to hurt her as she leans down and captures their lips in a kiss. She moves her free hand up to hold Cheryl’s head, fingers tangling up in copper coloured hair, her other hand still gripped in Cheryl’s, the two of them holding on like they’ll disappear otherwise.

It feels right.

It feels like the first real kiss they’ve had in weeks.

Not fuelled by tension, or done out of habit.

They break apart for air, but Toni doesn’t make any effort to move. She stays there, forehead pressed against Cheryl’s, and their lips mere centimetres apart.

“Thinking I lost you was the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me,” Toni whispers.

“I’m right here,” Cheryl promises, closing her eyes and then closing the space between them once again.

They’re far from done talking.

There’s still so much more they need to work out.

Not to mention, they still need to figure out how the hell Cheryl ended up in the hospital in the first place.

Toni knows she isn’t going to sleep again until they catch whoever did this.

There’s so much more.

To do.

To say.

But they have the rest of their lives for that.

Right now, they just want to share this precious, fleeting moment.

With their hearts aching for the other’s touch, they take a moment to just be selfish and give in.

Because they’re going to be just fine.

Cheryl and Toni, they have a story far from finished.

**Author's Note:**

> what'd you think? 
> 
> my tumblr @cheryl-in-a-barrel  
> my twitter @toninabarrel


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